Movie Talk: A Bear Story

Inspired by Keith Toda's recent blog post, I decided to try out my first Movie Talk. I first experienced a Movie Talk as a "student" last year when Von Ray did a TPRS workshop at our campus, and I found it to be a very entertaining way to hear many repetitions of target vocabulary. Movies are easily made compelling to students, and I loved the way this particular film, A Bear Story (cave: potentially a temporary link), was so emotionally engaging. Like Keith Toda, I had a student on the verge of tears when I showed the film the first time.

The Planning Process

To be honest, I selected this particular Movie Talk because I happened to read Keith Toda's post and my 7th graders happened to know most of the vocabulary words used in the script. I think you could plan a Movie Talk one of two ways, though:

• Find a video you like and teach it. My next Movie Talk is going to feature Pixar's La Luna because I happened to come across it while I was watching something else on YouTube. It's emotionally engaging and ties in nicely with our work with family vocabulary words earlier in the school year. In writing the script, I focused on words the students knew and would see in Stages 2 and 3 of the Cambridge textbook.

• Decide on your target vocabulary and find a video. Databases like this one are helpful for finding video clips that are topic-specific. I also like the idea of giving students a list of target vocabulary words and having them send you some video ideas.

The Lesson

On the day of the Movie Talk, I wrote my target vocabulary on the board in English and Latin.

As we watched the video, I paused and discussed the action in the film with my students. I made sure to speak slowly and point at words as I used them. I sometimes asked questions and sometimes just narrated the action. My students were engaged and could clearly comprehend the action and respond in Latin. They would sometimes volunteer information that I hadn't said; they were eager to contribute their own ideas in Latin.

Next Steps

On Day 1, I was only able to show the film once (while pausing and speaking). On Day 2, I showed the film again, pausing in similar places, and asking students to contribute the captions or narrations aloud. We worked together in Latin to retell the story. 

Then, I grouped my students in pairs or triplets. I clicked ahead to key moments in the film and showed still images. I asked the students to write what was happening at that moment. I chose about 8 key moments from the video that we had discussed during the Movie Talk for this exercise. This was a more or less ad hoc activity that didn't require the creation of any materials or worksheets. I had students write their captions on notebook paper that was numbered 1-8. They still had access to the vocabulary on the board for this, which really helped their fluency. If they asked me how to say something in Latin, I just pointed at the board. I collected their sentences and will use them for an in-context vocabulary quiz (by underlining target vocabulary words for them to define) and as captions for them to illustrate on their upcoming test.

One of the topics that surfaced during this writing exercise was noun endings. We haven't talked about declensions yet in 7th grade, but I've now had 4 students (out of 8 total) ask specific questions about how they work. Here are some examples:

• "Why is it pictura familiae?"
• "Why is it cubiculum on the board, but you said in cubiculo?"
• "Why do you say ursus est laetus but familia est laeta?"

They are finding noun declensions compelling! They want to learn them because they're hearing their speech corrected. They are seeing patterns that they can't quite discern. They want to speak correctly and understand how the architecture works.

As Jennie said in a conversation we had recently, sometimes students get an immediate explanation of something that they're not quite ready to process and it goes way over their heads. In the case of my 7th graders, I think their puzzling is going to pay off because they'll be receptive to the explanation when they receive it and ready to use it immediately. That'll be our next grammar lesson.

Here is a link to my La Luna Movie Talk. Feel free to use it and add comments if you have ideas to share.

Have you used a Movie Talk? What are some other activities you've done after the initial Talk? Do you circle vocabulary before the initial Talk or just jump right in?

- Magistra K.